Hey guys, I've always used Keyshot for rendering/animation, and its made some great stuff, but what do other studios use?For example Microsoft has been showing dope rendering animations in their ads for a while now, how can I get my game on that level??

Also, are studios expecting their own ID team to render at that level, or do they outsource the job to a specialized rendering type studio?

-Standalone visualization packages like Keyshot, VRED, Bunkspeed - tools designed for rendering, sometimes simple animations and nothing else.-Dedicated animation tools like Maya, 3D studio, Cinema4D, Modo. These can be paired with custom rendering engines like VRay, Maxwell, and other rendering engines which is what you will see most professional visualization studios using (though some get away just fine with Keyshot).

All studios have different expectations. Most internal corporate studios are OK with the Keyshot type approach. They let you get 90% of the way in a short period of time, and then will go out to professional firms if they need crazy awesome animations like exploding cutaway shots with circuit boards flying around and particle effects.

-Standalone visualization packages like Keyshot, VRED, Bunkspeed - tools designed for rendering, sometimes simple animations and nothing else.-Dedicated animation tools like Maya, 3D studio, Cinema4D, Modo. These can be paired with custom rendering engines like VRay, Maxwell, and other rendering engines which is what you will see most professional visualization studios using (though some get away just fine with Keyshot).

All studios have different expectations. Most internal corporate studios are OK with the Keyshot type approach. They let you get 90% of the way in a short period of time, and then will go out to professional firms if they need crazy awesome animations like exploding cutaway shots with circuit boards flying around and particle effects.

Thanks Cyberdemon, and I checked out that thread and it definitely looks like Keyshot can go further than I expected, that Dustin Lee's work is sweeet and all done in KS I think.. I will continue to learn what the program can really do!!

Check out Keyshot's webinar on youtube, they're really great. What allows you to take your Keyshot renders to the next level really is the Photoshop work. My biggest break through was with the passes you can do. Like breaking down by groups or the clown pass that allows for super fast selection. You can then very easily render out with different lighting and materials and blend everything nicely together in Photoshop.

I also learned quite a bit by looking at how product photographers work. There's a bunch of product photography tutorials on Youtube as well. You can learn a lot about how to setup your lighting and composites from them as well as understand how some of your reference images may have been lit to start with.

That's a great point that I try to make to people - the same way a photograph never comes straight out of the camera, the rendering tools should always be viewed the same way.

You can get a great picture, but perfect product shots require lots of retouching, compositing, adjustment whether analog or digital. That lets you focus on getting the right lighting and shading on the right part of the model one at a time rather than having to try and render the whole thing perfectly in one shot.

Thanks for the tips Louis and CyberdemonI agree with retouching renderings in PS. But when animating, how would/could you retouch?I can get the light setup dandy on one view in Keyshot, but if the product turns/moves it messes with the perfect highlights/shadows.Will also try to look at the webinar for tips.

Animation is a bit tougher, Keyshot is a very limited animation tool, depending on what your needs are at a certain point anything beyond some basic 360 spins or exploded views you can't get the results you'd want in Keyshot. That's when a full fledged animation tool like Cinema4D, Maya, or Blender would come in. You'd want something with keyframes that would let you not only control your object, but also parameters for your lighting objects, camera, etc.

From there, there are a number of compositing tools like After Effects or Nuke which are designed for professional compositing. The same way you can composite a single render from multiple objects you can composite an animation. But realistically no typical designers go that far because the skill set and time investment is too high. That's where full up visualization/graphics agencies come in who don't have to worry about having designers, but guys specialized in modeling, animation , rendering and compositing.

We use Bunkspeed Pro for animations. It is now Solidworks Visualize. That + Adobe Premier & After Effects can get your a very good animation. Compositing/directing the video is a skill of its own. Look at animations and dissect them paying close attention at camera angles, panning, zooming, focus and transitions.

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/40485805[/vimeo]One of our designers spent weeks doing this animation. We have also done full airplane interior animations.

FH13 wrote:We use Bunkspeed Pro for animations. It is now Solidworks Visualize. That + Adobe Premier & After Effects can get your a very good animation. Compositing/directing the video is a skill of its own. Look at animations and dissect them paying close attention at camera angles, panning, zooming, focus and transitions.

One of our designers spent weeks doing this animation. We have also done full airplane interior animations.